Social Media Is Making Some National Parks Too Popular▼

Since the early 2010s, America's national parks and historic monuments have drawn record numbers. They see 330 million annual visitors , and experts think social media has helped make them more popular than ever. That added traffic helps the parks make money and raise awareness, but it can also make the strain on parks' infrastructure and ecology even greater. Social media drives a lot of traffic to less-traveled areas through geotagging or attaching metadata to a post which can show users exactly where a photo was taken and the path to get there. Experts think as more people find out-of-the-way spots and travel to them, the wilderness and wildlife nearby deal with the increased wear and tear of foot traffic. Those posts can cause huge influxes of visitors nearly overnight. Source